


Hearth

by LadyCorvidae



Series: Here There Be Dragons [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blatant references to mythology, Dragon!Lock, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 12:37:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2622056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyCorvidae/pseuds/LadyCorvidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life of a dragon is a long, long, long one. Ages and aeons go by before a dragon dies a natural death. They usually reach them by foul play- knights, princes, the clever second son of some peasant. But rarely, very, very rarely... they make it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doctor_WTF](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctor_WTF/gifts).



> Oh lord, I've done it again. I wrote this over a year ago for my dear friend Doctor_WTF, who is amazing. I just finished the series (it's a set of three one-shots) and she said that I should post it. So, I gave in! Here we go...

The life of a dragon is a long, long, long one. Ages and aeons go by before a dragon dies a natural death. They usually reach them by foul play- knights, princes, the clever second son of some peasant. But rarely, very, very rarely... they make it.

And even rarer still, they fall in love. A dragon often, unfortunately, falls in love with a particular human. Humans are notoriously frail and short-lived; mayflies to a dragon’s tortoise, so they rarely are able to make their feelings known before the object of their affection passes beyond the veil. But, since this world and all of creation is on a spiral, history and people tend to repeat themselves.

The first time he fell in love with Her was when humanity was still in its relative infancy. They still lived in caves, hunted and gathered, wore rough, crude skins as primitive clothing. He saw Her tending the fire at her family’s hearth. At first, all he wanted to do was to breathe, show them what real fire looked like, send them running and scuttling like insects. But his elders cautioned him, saying that it would draw attention to them, and with attention came trouble. So he waited, and he watched. She stirred the fire with a long stick, the warm glow of it shining in her eyes and in the tangle of her dark hair. He felt something move in his chest, and after he left, he realized that it was his heart fluttering. Then, as quickly as he realized what it was, she was gone; lost to one of the predators that still stalked the lands and found the weak, upright-walking hominids as particularly easy prey.

The second time he found her was about seven hundred years later. The human race had expanded and grown. They could build now, strong structures made of earth and rock. They started pressing in on his kindred’s territory, and clashes began. The dragons were hardy, yes, but it was soon proven that they could be killed. The news reached him that one of their own was gone- done in by some upstart warrior called Gilgamesh. The rest of the humans were in awe and called him a god, making the dragon snort. Stupid- there was no way that these weak things could be gods. 

And then there was Her- she was the daughter of a merchant, and he recognized her by the silvery laugh and the smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle. She was gone too soon as well, taken by river fever before she was old enough to even marry. He couldn’t believe that he had missed her again, and he began to sulk. His peers thought he was silly and he knew that they mocked him behind their backs. But they couldn’t understand the way it felt to have that one person, that one being that made the dormant organ in the chest cavity stir. He decided to sleep for a while- maybe that would ease the pain of losing her again.

When he woke, a thousand years had passed. Stone and iron and glass was present now, as well as weapons of war- the catapult, the trebuchet, the ballista- and his kin grew fewer in number as the humans moved ever towards their territory. Knights; humans in metal suits wielding swords and misappropriated senses of ‘honor’ and ‘valor’ and ‘duty’ began to kill his kin out of spite. They had been here longer than these upright-walking pests, and now he was beginning to get angry, forgetting the love that he had once felt for one of them. The anger turned to rage when his closest confidante was killed, and he began to lay waste to their towns and cities, breathing liquid flame and taking joy in watching them curl and burn and suffer, screaming out to their impotent God to protect them. After each burning, he would retreat to his lair, being sure that he was never followed. As was their way, the humans began to tell tales of him, saying that he was the Adversary, he was the signal of the End of Days, that he stole virgins and violated them, making them bear his demon-spawn. He snorted at this. The mechanics of a human mating with dragon-kind was totally biologically impossible. But then... he had heard of one such union in the Northlands, the place of the Geats and the Danes; a she-dragon who had fallen for a great warrior and changed. He would have asked her how she managed to do it, but the warrior, after laying with her, killed her and then the knowledge was lost. He was angry, but only because it was a stupid waste of a technique that could maybe help him understand.

And he found Her again. She was a daughter of some lesser noble, staring out the windows of the keep when she should have been busy with her needlework. He would conceal himself and watch her with his far-seeing eyes. As luck would have it, there was a window in the great hall... and he would see her watch the fire. That was how he knew. The same glow overcame her, the same smile of contentment and peace. The same laugh as she watched her younger brothers play and jape. Then all too soon, she was married off to some other man and he watched her as she pined for home but kept silent out of her society’s sense of duty. He watched her bear children- a firstborn son, which was the cause of great joy for them. All he could think about was that story of the she-dragon in the Northlands, and how she had done it- changed to get what she wanted. When She died in childbirth- a daughter this time, that would live to carry on her mother’s line and beauty- he made his choice. He would learn, even if it took him forever.

 

It felt like it nearly did- he was impatient, and the process was taking too long. But through great pain and great power of will- he managed to do it. He kept his wits, his experiences through the long, long years of his life. But he took on the frail form of one of them. He was tall and striking in their eyes; dark, curling hair, deep voice (though it sounded like the mewl of a kitten compared to his real form’s), mind like a razor and whetstone, and piercing blue eyes. He was all angles and sharpness, his wit and his tongue. Dragon-kind had no need for social niceties, so he was often lonely. But he found one he could call ‘friend’... a man who had fought in wars, and had the dual nature of a healer as well as a soldier. He reminded him of his confidante, so long ago lost to the cruel devices of humankind. But he had yet to find Her. So he waited and he watched. And then he saw. She worked with the dead this time, and was quiet but cheerful. It was testament to her nature to care for things, and he found it ironic that the ones she cared for were past all help. However, he enjoyed the puzzles that this world presented, and more often than not, she helped him with his work.

He was cruel to her- again, the social niceties of humanity were lost on his draconic nature. But she still... she loved him. It pained his heart, that fluttering thing in his chest, to know that she would likely never see how he truly was, but for now, it was enough. She helped him when he needed it most- through the threat of great evil when he fought one that was so like one of his enemies of old that he wondered if even dragons could come back on that looping spiral of time and space. He ‘died’ to save his friends - the people he had come to care for. 

So, like much of his life, he hid and crept out to destroy, though this time, it was his enemy’s web. He knew that She was waiting for him to come back. He knew that things between them would change. And he wondered- the world had so changed, and fires for warmth and light were rapidly becoming things of the past- if She would still look the same if he asked her to tend to the flames in the hearth.


End file.
